Egypt judge will rule on second mass trial of Islamists in April

MINYA // After a single session with no defence lawyers present, an Egyptian judge said on Tuesday he will issue verdicts next month in a new mass trial of 683 suspected Islamists, including the Muslim Brotherhood’s spiritual leader, on charges of murder and attempted murder.

The announcement came a day after he sentenced hundreds to death in a similar trial that raised a storm of international criticism.

The mass trials have raised concerns among human rights activists over the lack of due process as Egyptian authorities push swift and heavy prosecutions in their crackdown against Islamists and the Brotherhood. About 16,000 have been in arrested in the crackdown since Islamist president Mohammed Morsi was removed from power last summer.

Defence lawyers boycotted the trial that began on Tuesday in the court in the city of Minya, south of Cairo, to protest the verdicts issued the day before in a separate trial. Despite the lawyer boycott, presiding judge Said Youssef went ahead with the session, hearing testimony, in what the lawyers called a violation of the law.

After the five-hour hearing, the judge announced that he would issue verdicts in the case at the next session, set for April 28, according to judicial and security officials who attended the sessions and Mohammed Tosson, a defence lawyer who boycotted the session but present in the court building to monitor the results.

The charges in Tuesday’s proceedings stemmed from rioting last August sparked by the security forces’ storming of two Brotherhood sit-ins in Cairo that killed more than 600 people.

The dispersal of the protest camps came weeks after the military removed Mr Morsi following days of massive protests in which millions demanded he step down for abusing power.

Only 68 of the 683 defendants were in the dock on Tuesday. The rest are being tried in absentia. A handful of other defendants held in the case, including the Brotherhood’s spiritual leader, Mr Badie, and other senior figures who are jailed in Cairo, were not present at the trial in Minya. Authorities cited security reasons for not bringing them to the hearings.

Monday’s swift verdicts and the harsh sentences stunned human rights activists and raised fears that the rule of law is being swept away in the crackdown waged by the military-backed interim government against Morsi’s Brotherhood since his overthrow last July.

Khaled Fouda from the lawyers’ syndicate in Minya, held a press conference to announce their protest.

“As lawyers, we haven’t seen anything like what happened here yesterday in our entire professional lives and we will not see anything like it until our deaths,” he said.

Yasser Zidan, one of the lawyers boycotting the proceedings, said the judge did not postpone the trial despite the absence of the suspects’ lawyers — another grave violation of due process.

He said that according to the law, a court is obliged to postpone a session in the absence of defence lawyers and until new lawyers are assigned to the case.

“This is just another disaster,” Mr Zidan said. “This judge smashed the rock of justice with his own hands. He is inventing a new law.”

He said the lawyers have filed a suit against the judge, demanding his removal.

The defendants were brought to court on Tuesday in prison lorries under heavy security. In addition to Mr Badie, top Brotherhood officials such as Mamdouh Ammar and the legislator Mohammed Marzouk were listed among the defendants, but it was not immediately known if they were in court on Tuesday.

The 68 were arrested following an August attack on a police station in the town of Al Adawa, when a crowd of pro-Morsi supporters stormed a police station to steal weapons, looted government buildings and carried out acts of “sabotage” against the state security, according to the charges.

The defendants are also charged with the killing of two policemen and attempted murder of five people, including a Christian resident.

In Minya, roads around the court were blocked by concrete blocks and metal barricades, manned by security forces and masked special forces. Armoured vehicles patrolled the streets and shops near the court were shut down.

Security forces kept small groups of protesters, including relatives of the defendants, and traffic away from the area.

* Associated Press